I'm pulling the boat out of storage on Thursday and hopefully taking it to the stereo shop on Saturday to get the WS-420 installed and tuned...but before I set up the appointment, I wanted to double-check to see if my amp setup is going to work well with the WS-420?

Do I need to have a stand-alone sub in order to have the WS-420 perform correct? I haven't been challenged with power/need for MORE volume so if I don't have to mess with more amps, I don't want to! Otherwise, I can order the Arc Audio XDi 600.1 sub amp today and not have any issues!
Thanks!

The ARC 5 ch will have seperate inputs for the front/rear and sub ch's. You would take the in boat RCA from the WS-420 to the 805 and use Y adapters and plug those into inputs front and rear. You would then take the sub output from the WS-420 and plug it into the sub input of the 805. Then take the tower output from the WS-420 to the 804 using y adapters there as well.

Well, my ‘easy’ WS-420 installation has turned into quite the debacle! My last boat, I setup everything and never had any issues. This time around, new boat and new system so I figured I’d spend the money to have everything “professionally” installed. I forgot that I live in Vermont and only have access to ONE stereo shop with a cocky/know-it-all installer...

First time I take the boat in, the installer calls me after a few hours telling me that he mounted everything up, but that the EQ won’t power up? He said the external fuse blew (2a fuse) and he replaced it with a 3a (as they don’t carry 2a fuses) and still no power? So I end up picking up the boat and ask him to connect all the wires ‘as they were’ so I can still have tunes. He scoffed and said “whatever, it’s your money!”

So I send it back to Wetsounds and they bench test it (for some reason, my installer didn’t bench test it to begin with?), and of course it powers right up with a new 2a fuse! So they ship it back and I make another appointment to bring my boat in.

Appointment #2 - This time, everything installs quickly and sounds great, especially with the ability to tune the Bullet HCLD’s. He hooked it up through a relay in order to help eliminate hissing/pops/ground loops and never had one noise when I took it out over Memorial Weekend and loved the new addition!

A few days later, I come out to my boat to find battery #2 dead (the battery that powers my stereo/2 Arc Audio amps & WS-420 EQ), so I toss it on the charger thinking I must have left something on?

I charge it up and then I notice something very strange…the Wetsounds WS-420 EQ is ON, but the key was not turned and the ‘stereo’ switch on the dash is OFF, so it makes no sense? When I go to turn on the key and turn on the stereo switch on the dash, everything powers up and starts to play, but 2 seconds later the tower/sub amp turns off and the green power light switches to red, ie power protection, and the tower/subs go out.

Over the past week, I’ve learned a few things through my own troubleshooting:

When I had the original dealer in Cali install my new amps at time of purchase, they simply swapped out the stock Kicker amp with my new in-board Arc Audio amp, THEN they ran a separate set of +/- wires to my Tower/Sub Arc Audio amp (so they were wired completely independent of one another).

So yesterday, I hit the stereo shop and picked up new Stinger 4g +/- wire, run that from that battery (along with an in-line fuse 12” within the battery) and then ran the + and – cables to separate distributor blocks. From there, I ran 8g +/- wire to each amp.

I ran all the new wiring over last night, and connected it this morning before work...unfortunately, it did not correct the issue.

I have both amps running off of the 2 new distributor blocks.

I located the yellow power wire that the installer connected to power the relay and followed it back under the dash (as I read that all stereo components should be running off of the same battery and +/- cables, yet the installer ignored my request to make sure this was done?). It was connected to a shared power distribution under the dash, so I disconnected that line and ran the yellow power wire directly to the new + distribution block and tested. No improvement!

When I turn the key on, turn the stereo switch on the dash on, and turn on the stereo...everything powers up, but within 2 seconds the tower/sub amp switch from green light to red light and goes into protection mode. The in-boat amp and speakers play fine. You can briefly hear music from the tower speakers and sub before a 'pop' and going into protection mode. So basically, this did not make any change for the better, although the EQ turns off now when you turn off the key and turn off the accessory switch (previously, it was staying on but not at your shop...this only started happening about a week later). I believe everything powers on when I power up the head unit? I don't feel this problem of the EQ staying on is totally fixed as this did happen without any of the new power/ground wiring.

Currently, the head unit is on its OWN power (through the stock wiring, and wondering if this is what is causing me issues?) - I noticed that when I attach the +/- cables for the head unit to the second battery that I can hear an audible 'click' in the relay, even without attaching the +/- cables for the amps. Is it possible that the relay is bad? I'm guessing that we will need to have the head unit be connected to the same +/- distributor blocks that I just connected?

On the relay, it appears as though it's wired correct. Terminal 85 is connected to ground and terminal 86 is connected to the remote turn on lead from the head unit. Terminal 87 of the relay is connected to the amps and EQ remote turn on terminal. Terminal 30 of the relay is then connected to 12 volts (the yellow wire I mentioned above that I ran through the new distributor).

Also, there is a red wire running from under the dash that goes to the back of the harness on the stereo...I'm guessing that this wire runs from the 'Stereo' switch on the dashboard? This is the only 'mystery' wire to me (as I can't see where it runs to?), and I'm not sure what to do with this to ensure all of the components are running from the same power? My guess is that there's a wire that runs to the back of the 'Stereo' switch on the back of it, that possibly runs to another shared power source under the dash and causing some type of overload when all the systems connect? Obviously something's causing the tower amp to go into power protect. Something tells me it's this relay and stereo switch working against each other?

Sorry for the lengthy outline but wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions? Why is the in-boat amp (Arc Audio 804) powering up and playing fine, while the tower/sub amp (Arc Audio 805) is going into power-protection mode? What is the correct way to wire in a relay connected to the stereo switch on the dashboard? Should the red wire from the switch be connected to the relay? Currently, it runs into the back of the wire harness that connects to the head unit.

I’ve attached a few pics for review as well. I have an appointment to go back to this LOUSY installer tomorrow in order to help troubleshoot (instead of be out on the lake after a long week!), but if there’s anything I can do AVOID going back to these morons, I’d appreciate any advice! I’m holding off on any Yelp or Google Places reviews until I get this running correct

Prior to the WS-420 EQ installation, everything worked fine in regards to the amps, tower speakers and sub.

I am not expert, but just installed my own ws420. at first it sounded like your eq remote line in wasn't connected to the headunits remote line out, but that sounds fixed now. If you get a ipod with headphone to rca cable and connect directly to your tower amp , does it play fine? Whats the voltage at your tower amp?

I run three wires from my batteries and amps on the passenger side over to the helm side ( I use 12 gauge builge wire for this)
On the amp side, I run the red to the positve distribution block for the amps, black to the negative distribution blocks and the third wire I attach to a small distribution block to feed the remote signal to each of the amps (4 in my case). Then on the helm side I use a relay like you are doing with the black builge wire (Neg from the dist block), ground from the WS-420, and ground from the HU going to the negative side of the relay. on the positive side of the relay, I wire the red builge wire (Pos from the dist block), along with the pos lead on the 420 and BOTH the yellow and red pos leads from the head unit to the positive side of the relay. wire in the remote turn on coming from the head unit to its side of the relay, and then finally, the remote turn on from the 420 along with the remaining bilge pump wire (going to the amp turn on distribution block) into the last leg of the relay.

I realize you are doing about 95% of this already, I think the main difference is that I am running both of the positve leads from the head unit (red and yellow) along with the pos lead from the 420 to the Amp distribution block as well as only running a single wire to a amp remote turn on distribution block.

Yesterday I had the chance to troubleshoot some more and found out that the stereo switch is wired to battery #1 (which I can only guess is causing these issues?)...I'm going to follow your outline Russ and see if that corrects things first?

Otherwise I plan to pull the switch out of the dash and run the power to battery #2. Feeling like we're making progress, hopefully we'll be cranking the tunes this morning and out on the water this afternoon!

I also noticed that there is a black 10g wire that is connecting the negative posts of battery #1 and battery #2, and I'm unsure if by disconnecting this wire it will mess up how my battery isolator works? I assume that they are connected for a reason but also realize that having the batteries connected in this manner will likely contribute to my amp/stereo issues.

Any thoughts on what should be done with this black wire connecting the negative posts? Will the isolator stop working?

Bench tested the tower amp and it went into protection mode! Guessing that due to the wiring issues between 2 batteries, it shorted out something? Sabotaged by the careless installer! New JL amp installed and all is functioning fine, will warranty amp and put it on eBay.